The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before.
David CrystalRead
Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Bilingualism enriches personal and professional identity by allowing access to opportunities while preserving cultural heritage.
David Crystal's quote emphasizes the dual advantages of being bilingual. It suggests that learning a new language not only enhances career prospects but also helps maintain one's cultural identity through the retention of the old language, thereby allowing individuals to navigate both spheres of their existence effectively.
Themes
BilingualismIdentityLanguageOpportunityCulture
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the advantages of language learning during a school presentation.
More from David Crystal
All quotes →The main effect of the Internet on language has been to increase the expressive richness of language, providing the language with a new set of communicative dimensions that haven't existed in the past.
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Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.
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Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is a mosaic of visions. To lose even one piece of this mosaic is a loss for all of us.
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Every usage, no matter how bizarre or nonstandard, fascinates me, as it tells me something about the way language is evolving.
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Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.
David CrystalRead
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